Political and media accomplices of genocide in Gaza condemn Russian missile attack on Ukrainian hospital

Leaders of the imperialist powers and international media expressed moral outrage this week over a Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Ukraine. The accomplices of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which, according to an estimate by the prestigious medical journal, has claimed over 186,000 lives, The Lancetaccused Russia of violating international law and called for leading politicians to be held accountable for war crimes.

A UN investigation found that there was a “high probability” that a Russian cruise missile hit the Ochmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, destroying the toxicology department and killing two people. Another 16 people were injured in the attack. At least 38 people were killed in the missile attacks across the country. A Russian government statement blamed a projectile fired by Ukrainian air defense systems for the explosion at the hospital.

The US and Britain were among several Western countries calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to condemn the attack. Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Russia for “attacks on innocent children”, one of the “most reprehensible acts”. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “We must hold those responsible for Putin’s illegal war to account.” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned Russia for “reckless attacks on Ukrainian civilians”.

Major international media, including the New York Times and CNN in the USA and The guard and BBC in the UK covered the missile attack extensively, providing accompanying photo and video coverage. Timing, as they say, is everything. The images of half-naked patients being chased out of a hospital building, some still hooked up to oxygen and other medical equipment, coincided precisely with the start of the NATO summit in Washington. The announcements that NATO would massively escalate the war with Russia by establishing a permanent mission in Ukraine and taking direct control over arms supplies to Kyiv were presented against the backdrop of the “barbarism” of Russian attacks on hospitals and children.

The hypocrisy expressed here is astonishing. The far-right Israeli regime, using weapons from American and German imperialism, has massacred about eight percent of the population of the Gaza Strip and devastated the civilian infrastructure. Hospitals have been turned into war zones and mass graves, schools and universities have been destroyed, and most of the enclave’s housing units have been razed to the ground or damaged.

Yet none of the politicians or editorial writers calling for consequences for Russia have criticized the Netanyahu government’s genocide. On the contrary, they have used draconian methods of state repression to silence anti-genocide protesters and vilified all opponents of Israel’s barbaric actions as “anti-Semites.”